We’ve packed up our suitcases and moved seven times since July of last year and for the most part, we’ve been alone where we stayed, but this time we’re staying with my oldest daughter and her family. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very excited to be here and build on the relationship she and I were never able to have but being out of my comfort zone for over eight months is really messing with my head.

Leading up to the move I was beside myself with worry about what she may think of me once she’d spent more than a couple hours with me. She’d always been told by my family of origin that I didn’t have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), that I had Munchausen’s Syndrome. Which is a factitious disorder; a mental disorder where a person makes up illnesses even though they aren’t actually sick and that the only thing wrong with me was that I’m a liar; a story-teller.

We had to come here a day early because my daughters youngest was sick and she didn’t have anyone to watch her while she went to work and the change in plans messed with my head so much that I really thought I was losing my mind – or what was left of it. I couldn’t stop crying – it was like someone turned on the taps! Every time I turned around there were tears streaming down my face and although I got so many reassuring hugs from Gary, I felt incredibly broken.

Usually, when I’m feeling this way, I shut down. I close all the curtains, lock the doors and try to recover myself if you know what I mean? I watch music videos, crank up the music and dance, colour or just scroll through Twitter looking for positive tweets so that I can read and share, but I couldn’t do any of these things. We were going to be staying with people instead of being alone, so instead, I had to put on a fake face and pretend that everything was rosy when that was the furthest thing from the truth!

Honestly, I was so depressed that it was hard to explain how or what I was feeling, all I knew was that I couldn’t stop crying. I felt like I was down at the bottom of a deep dark hole, trying to claw my way out, but the dirt just kept falling on top of me, burying me, suffocating me. During the drive, I thought about asking Gary to just take me to the nearest crisis centre because I felt dangerously close to losing touch with reality and I wasn’t sure how I was going to get through this second last move.

When we finally got to my daughter’s place, she looked at me and said, you sure are crotchety Mom, are you mad at me? I burst into tears and said of course not, but then I told her exactly how I was feeling. I opened up completely and told her that I was afraid of what she was going to think of me after we’d lived together for a month, that if she really knew how fucked up I felt most of the time, I would lose her again.

It turns out that she’s been struggling with her own demons because last night, she had a panic attack. She was making my birthday dinner and although she wanted everything to be perfect, she was making my favourite meal and she’d never made it before. She asked Gary how to make it, but not how much of it she needed to make, and she ended up making quite a lot. To be honest, I wasn’t paying any attention to what she was doing, because we were talking about our pasts and how messed up they were but when Gary came upstairs and looked into the pot he said wow, are we feeding an army?

She immediately took what he said as criticism and I watched as she started sliding down the slippery slope of self-doubt that had been instilled in her by my family of origin. She kept saying she was sorry and asking if we were mad at her, and I told her of course not. I told her that now we wouldn’t have to make dinner the tonight because we had left-overs, but she just kept apologizing. After we had reassured her that it was an honest mistake and that of course we still loved her, she opened up and told us that there were other people from her past that would have been mad at her for something as mundane as “wasting” food.

Thinking about it now makes me feel really bad because I had no idea that all these years she had been criticized and ridiculed or that she’d been told by my family of origin that I never wanted her, or her sister. They also told her that I didn’t ‘really’ love her or her sister, and because of that, she has always doubted my love for her. Worse yet, she’s always doubted herself …how could you not doubt yourself if you didn’t think your mother loved you?! So here she was thinking she’d done something to disappoint me, after only a few days, and she had a panic attack!

It was almost like watching a video of myself and instead of feeling that this move was going to break her and I further apart, I felt like it was going to bring us closer together. Honestly, I feel kind of like I just moved in with myself because we’re so alike and I’m not worried anymore. I feel like I’ve been given a second chance and I believe that this next month is going to be great! I’m going to take full advantage of this time (all 51,660 minutes of it!!) to strengthen our relationship and show her that good mother’s really do love unconditionally.

; I'm Still Here!

; I'm Still Here, is a guide to living with and surviving PTSD - post traumatic stress disorder. It is a true story written by a survivor describing the symptoms, triggers and treatments that are currently available.

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